Engineering and finance/accounting career path
Engineering and finance/accounting career path
(OP)
Hi everyone,
I am currently in my penultimate (4th) year of electrical engineering and accounting and i am quite unsure about my future career path. Originally i was only taking on electrical engineering but my father who recently retired from engineering encouraged me to take on accounting aswell as it will provide more opportunities. I trusted him with his advice and all is well so far.
However, I am still a bit unsure of what I would be able to do with these 2 degrees when I finish and what type of companies will find these two disciplines of use to them.
Do you agree/disagree with this degree choice? or did you or someone you know land in a scenario similar to this?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks fellas!
Marty.
I am currently in my penultimate (4th) year of electrical engineering and accounting and i am quite unsure about my future career path. Originally i was only taking on electrical engineering but my father who recently retired from engineering encouraged me to take on accounting aswell as it will provide more opportunities. I trusted him with his advice and all is well so far.
However, I am still a bit unsure of what I would be able to do with these 2 degrees when I finish and what type of companies will find these two disciplines of use to them.
Do you agree/disagree with this degree choice? or did you or someone you know land in a scenario similar to this?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks fellas!
Marty.





RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
If you end up staying technical, your accounting experience might still come in handy. Life cycle cost analyses are going to become more and more important as infrastructure ages and owners need to decide whether to rehabilitate or replace it.
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
then your career paths would align ... technical or mgmt.
this isn't to say it's black and white, but there is very little grey ... very few mgmt types can do really technical work, few technical types like doing the mgmt stuff.
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
BMW say that it is fairly easy to teach someone who is strong technically to think like an accountant but almost impossible to do the reverse.
They seem to have done OK over the years.
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
A semi-retired accounting firm owner with experience in growing technology companies once said to me that accountants should never rule companies and should only ever advise. He said that this was because accountants can only evaluate things which have a direct monetary value (that's their job) and that many things in companies were valuable but were difficult to assign a monetary value to. Because it was difficult, no value was added, important things were thus completely off the accountants radar and expensive mistakes could and were made.
Good Luck.
gwolf.
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
You have elegantly captured exactly what has happened where I work. Not only do the accountants "rule", they go so far as to dictate how engineering is to be done (i.e., do as little as possible because it costs money).
For the most part, I ignore them and do things my way. That's the only thing that keeps me going most days.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
I have always been interested in finance but could not stand the classes as most of the textbooks had some major flaws. I always did bad on the econ tests as they didn't follow reality. This may be a typical engineering student perspective of being able to find flaws in what you read.
So my good buddy is an investment banker in London doing very well for himself. I have told him a few times over the years that if engineering doesn't work out I am going to get my MBA and join his profession. He told me that as he understands, engineers make some of the best investment bankers, and companies know that. Also he doesn't have an MBA, and he is managing people with MBA's. So you might not even need an MBA to get your foot in the door.
Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
Thanks everyone so much for the helpful advice, i think for now ill concentrate on electrical and if an opportunity comes up in finance some time down the road i may take it.
Again thanks again for all the help!
Cheers
RE: Engineering and finance/accounting career path
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?